


Moonshine

by Mirabai0821



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe, Animal Death, F/M, Female Character of Color, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-25 04:35:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3796897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirabai0821/pseuds/Mirabai0821
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is better suited for the moonlight.<br/>One taste and he's as drunk as he's ever been.<br/>This is what happens when the Wolf of Kirkwall meets the Herald of Andraste.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moonshine

She glowed, Maker fucking help him, she glowed. And he didn't mean that magic shit on her hand, he meant her. Like lacquered ebony under bright light she shined, Samson raised a hand to his eyes to shield them.

That was the woman Sister Nightingale and Seeker Pentahast pulled out of the rubble of the Conclave. The woman who, with the sweep of a wrist sealed a fucking rent in the world as easy as stitching up a seam. A woman who met him and didn't automatically sneer in disgust.

Andraste's chosen looked upon the Chantry's used up leavings and fucking smiled.

So while the Seeker kept regarding her from the curve of her nose as something to be wary of, mindful of, and while Solas thought of her as nothing more than a magical experiment to poke and prod and examine, Samson devoted his full heart to her, not the cause. Her. Yes he was Commander of the Inquisition's forces, how he got that job, fuck if he knew. But he swore himself to her only and all on the curve of her smile.

The day they brought her out of the Fade, he found her whistling at the edges of their makeshift hamlet, pacing back and forth and around, pressing two dark skinned fingers into her mouth and blowing, blowing, blowing until she was dizzy from the lost breath.

"Seven hells woman, why are you making such a racket so close to midnight bell?"

She didn't bristle at his swear, she in fact ignored him and sucked in a huge breath and bellowed with a voice that belonged in a frame so well built.

"Cousland!"

"My lady?"

She shushed him with a finger and put her ears into the wind, listening. She had braids for hair, or ropes, or finger thick black snakes. They sprung out of her head like tree roots, their ends long enough to tickle the divot between her shoulder blades.

When she heard nothing she gave up a cry of anguish bordering on pain.

"I must find my hound serah."

"It's just Samson to you. And your hound, mistress?"

"She was with me at Conclave, I should have never locked her up."

A longbow was slung around her frame, the bowstring parting two full breasts, the weapon's edge bouncing against wide hip and muscled thigh. She was a hunter. 

The Herald took her bow, thrummed the string to ensure it's soundness and sprinted off into the woods. Samson trampled through the snow after her, shouted ragged curses at her back.

"It's too late for you to be fucking about the forest at night!"

She did not call back and Maker could she run. Powerful legs cut through drifting snow and rock, her rope like hair flying free behind her, she ran like a streak of dark lightning, whistling and calling as she went. 

"Cousland! Cousland!"

She stopped, Samson puffed up behind her, body torn and winded from running in a Templar's full plate. The lyrium gave him the stamina to keep up, but you can't move all that muscle that quickly without feeling something. He huffed and made to curse again before a gloved hand clamped around his mouth, stilling him.

Kirkwall smelled like shit and death and sorrow. Haven smelled like snow, magical petricor, and fear. She smelled like citrus, flowers, and spices. A breath of warm summer in harsh winter. He inhaled her and he was lost.

"Quiet!" she hissed, uncaring at their closeness. Then she heard it, a ragged howl and a bear's roar. She flew from him and into the snow again, and his heart lurched, from the sudden loss of her, and the sudden realization he'd have to start running again.

He heard the twang of flying arrow before he even saw the bear. She caught the beast in the back of the head and in its flank before it could bring down a hammer's blow on the bleeding brown furry thing under it.

A mabari dog, snarling and snapping, even though it's back legs hung limp under it.

"Cousland!"  
She spoke something foul sounding in a language he didn't understand, her arrows flying second after second, the bowstring singing a hymn of blood.

The bear thoroughly annoyed forgot it's easy prey and settled on her, 500 pounds of berserked nature charged toward her, and by Maferath's balls she stood her ground, taking aim and firing, sinking an arrow deep into the creature's skull right through the eye.

A paw clawed with 7 inch nails reached to maul her as the beast fell but a iron shield blocked the blow.

"Andraste's flaming sword!" The full dead weight of the bear struck his shield, pushing Samson down and back into the soft packed snow, threatening to crush him. But he summoned the power of the blue and pushed back, hauling until the dead thing rolled off to the side and into the dirt. 

Samson spit. Burning that much lyrium, surged the craving within him, drying out his mouth, making him hungry. So very hungry.

"Woman?"

He turned, finding empty space and footprints in the snow. With the bear dead, the dark forest quieted save the swaying pine boughs and the harsh whistle of cold winter wind. 

"Herald?"

He followed footprints to a pair of bodies sitting in the cold. The mabari panted, whining and whimpering while its mistress rocked it slowly singing measures in soft half-sobs.

"Once we were  
In our peace with our lives assured.  
Once we were.  
Not afraid of the dark."

The horrors of the Gallows, of the Kirkwall that fell apart haunted his dreams, drove the sleep from him nightly. The look in her eyes, joined that long list of nightmares, breaking his heart in neat little pieces when he was so sure he didn't have enough heart left to break.

"Samson, please. Do you have a potion?" She whined, sounding very much like the dying hound in her arms.

"No, my lady," he choked.

The mabari's back was broken, and neither of them were mages. She fixed her face in grim determination and circled her arms around the dog and lifted 200 pounds of dead weight before an inhuman screech sent her right back to the ground.

"Shh...sweetling, shh it is alright. You hurt, you hurt. My good hunter, my good girl, I am so glad I get to see you again."

Samson knelt with them in the snow even when he knew he should go back, this was a private moment, he had not right to intrude. But Samson knew death intimately, the pain of watching loved ones die in lovers arms. Hadn't that been the way Cullen died, rocked back and forth, golden eyes sightless as his mage lover, Amell, sang him to sleep while Kirkwall screamed?

"Who is this strong girl?" Samson asked bringing his hand to the dogs face for a sniff.

Dogs as a rule dislike wolves, but the mabari seemed comforted and gave his gloved hand a lick.

"She is Cousland, named for the Heroine of Ferelden."

"I thought you were a Free Marcher."

"I am. In addition to raising horseflesh, we raised mabaris she was the worst of all the litters I whelped. Together, she and I made her the best. She is my only family left."

Cousland sensed her mistresses distress and pained itself to raise it's jaws to her face and lick the tears away.

"Lay down, go to rest." Her hound heard her, and laid down again in her lap.

"Samson." She whispered. "Have you a knife?"

"Aye. I do." She should never make such a face again> Void take it all, he prayed he never saw her in such pain again. He would fight so she never would and he felt woozy in his conviction. "I can...I can do this for you."

She smiled that smile again and his head swam in its glow. "No. I brought her in, I'll ease her out."

Tenderly, so softly, they shifted close to one another, bringing her summer smell into his mind again as they moved Cousland between them, her bulk resting on their knees.

"Draw your last breath, my love." She cooed, patting her head, kissing her fur. 

She rested the blade, point sharp and deadly at the dog's ribs. "Cross the Veil and the Fade and all the stars in the sky." Her voice wavered and fresh tears flowed from dark amber eyes the color of blown glass fresh from the forge.

Samson placed a steady hand on top of hers and pushed in, so tenderly but so swift, the hound didn't even whimper at the bite of the blade.

"Rest at the Maker's right hand." He finished.

She bent forward, sobbing in earnest now, while he took the dagger and cleaned it on his trousers.

"Its too cold for you to cry too long." He warned. "Well past midnight now."

She rose and left Cousland in the snow unburied, a feast for scavenger and crow the way nature intended.

**

Thank fuck they walked back in silence as her tears became frozen tracks in her face.

"You've no more family mistress?"

"It is Evelyn to you." She said mimicing his tone. His laugh came like a growl, it warmed her.

"Aye, Lady Evelyn."

"No just Evelyn. I have filial blood still living yes, but sometimes the animals are more like family and the family like animals. Cousland was the last living thing that loved me truly."

No. He'd prove her wrong one day.

Within the hour they had returned to Haven, abandoned to sleep save the scant guards they had.

"Wouldja look at this horseshit, there's no way we should be able to waltz back undetected. I'll bugger 'em in the morning for their lack of disci..."

She seized his wrist in an iron grip, spun him, and kissed him, her dark cold lips on his paler colder ones. But oh _Maker_ the fire that ignited when they met. Her fingers pressed him close at the base of his neck, his mouth parted, her tongue entered and everything about this was so blessedly right and so fucked sideways. He should have kissed her this roughly; he should be the one growling with heady want into his mouth, he should be the one with hands around her wrist so tight they might bruise even her earthen skin. But no, she pushed, she drove, and Maker he let her.

She pulled away before his body betrayed him to _whine_ with need, and placed a more chaste kiss on his cheek.

"Thank you Serah Samson. I will never forget this."

"Forget what, moonshine?" 

Moonshine. 

Appropriate. 

Silver moon suited her better than golden sun. And, she was the most intoxicating thing a man could want to drink. One swallow of her and he was stumbling drunk. 

"What I did back there or what you did just now?”

"Both."

**Author's Note:**

> Written because my crack!ship is slowly fighting for OTP status and I needed a fictional palette cleanser so I can refocus on my bigger work. There may be more, there may not be. Comments breathe life.


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